Ham Sandwich Indicted!

Now that the Farmer's Market season is once again upon us (hooray!), I've been playing a little game in which I try to make meals with ingredients that I a) already have on hand and b) only get from my Saturday excursions to the North Market. (It's also a fun game to play if you're trying NOT to spend money like a drunken sailor.) Last night, in the spirit of the game, I decided to use the last of the asparagus that I got from Saturday's market, whatever I had in my fridge, and some herbs from my garden and make a 'green' risotto. I love risotto. You can put damn near anything in it and it's delicious--shrimp, chicken, wine, vegetables, cream, cheese.... I remember the first time I think I tried it was my senior year in college (it's amazing, how far the Ham Sandwich has come!), and my then-boyfriend took me to a Valentine's Day dinner in the Italian North End of Boston. I had mushroom risotto and fell in love (with the risotto; unfortunately, no...

Holy mackerel, this weekend was a food fest if I've ever seen one. I'll get to what's in the lead photo in a minute, since I'm going to try to keep this in chronological order. First up, Friday night was a impromptu Westside taco truck tour with 4-5 friends. We hit Los Potosinos (chorizo tacos), La Super Torta II (for a torta de tasajo con quesillo), Los Gauchos (tacos al pastor), and Otro Rollo (for a huarache). My charming friend Ella vamps in front of La Super Torta II As always, Los Potosinos and Los Gauchos was delicious. Los Potosinos gave us some really great pickled carrots to munch on while we were waiting for a tacos, and while we didn't get the superb chicken al carbon , we did really like the chorizo tacos. (Oh, and we also shared a horchata , the cinnamony, sweetened rice-milk beverage, to drink. Big yum!) The second stop, La Super Torta II, was just down Georgesville Rd. and we stopped on the recommendation of my friend Lauren, an expert in all things...

Sometimes, the only thing to do on a rainy Sunday night is to bust out a new cookbook and make something that you've never made before. In this case, it was the Golden Book of Baking that my sister-in-law gave me for my birthday (thanks, Eva!) and the recipe was Apple Kuchen Crumble. This was the recipe of choice for a couple of reasons: 1) I had 3 pounds of frozen, sliced apples in my freezer that needed to get used, and 2) I was actually home for the several hours required for raising and proofing the dough. For those of you that didn't grow up with off-the-boat German grandmothers for whom baking was a part of life and not something to blog home about, apple kuchen (cake) is a German pastry with a bread-dough like base that's topped with sliced apples and a crumb topping or maybe a light glaze. It's not overly sweet, as the focus is on the fruit, and it was the de rigeur dessert at many of our family holiday dinners. The thing that was great about my Grandma Ber...

This weekend I had the privilege of making cupcakes for a friend's birthday party. Having been informed that she was a fan of vanilla cupcakes, I busted out a Bon Appetit recipe that I used last Spring. That recipe, however, is fairly coconut-centric, and I wasn't sure how the party guests would feel about it...coconut seems to be rather polarizing, you either love it, or loathe it. The recipe calls for reduced coconut milk to keep the cupcakes moist and add flavor to the batter and icing, but I felt that the concentrated coconut milk might be too much. Having read about the wonders of mayonnaise as a useful ingredient in keeping baked goods moist and delicious, I thought that maybe I could combine some un-reduced coconut milk and some mayo and get the same effect as using straight, condensed coconut milk. Yes, mayo is well, mayo, and the thought of it in a baked good sounds somewhat bizarre. Turns out, however, mayo is pretty fantastic and keeping your cupcakes from drying ou...

Ramps are another one of those things that make Ohio pretty awesome (along with Jeni's Ice Cream and Barley's Brewing Co , and pretty much everything else I mention in this blog...) Ramps, if you don't live in a state bordering the Appalachian Mountains, grow wild in said mountains and foothills of those mountains, and are a short-lived Spring treat. Part of the allium family, they are sometimes called wild leeks or spring onions. They're a cross in taste (in my opinion) of a scallion and garlic. They are also delicious. Having first read about ramps last year in Bittman's blog, Bitten, I found some end-of-season stragglers and made them into some pretty delicious biscuits . This year, I was ready for them, and made a beeline to The Hills market this past Saturday morning to pick some up. Based on my research, I found that you can do a lot of things with ramps to prolong your enjoyment of them. There are several recipes for pickling the bottom white parts,...

I'm sure that by now, pretty much everyone is familiar with the current darling of the condiment world, Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce. A product of Huy Fong Foods, it's been made in California since the 1980s, but has seen a surge in popularity in the last few years, thanks to appearances on Iron Chef, use by celebrity chefs, and write-ups in The New York Times . In fact, this past January Sriracha was named the 2010 Ingredient of the Year by Bon Appetit magazine. So what's the massive appeal? The ingredient list is spectacularly simple: red jalapeno peppers, garlic, salt, sugar, vinegar in a paste in a squeezable bottle. It manages to be spicy without being overbearing (see previous post on Jolokia peppers), and adds great depth of flavor to pretty much anything--soups, marinades, sauces (it's GREAT in pasta sauces), dips and dressings. I thought I'd post my current favorite use of Sriracha since tomato season is not too far away. Come to think of it, a dash of Srirach...

(Image courtesy of www.tastethefear.com) During my weekdays, I spend my time prosecuting those who violate the laws of man. Apparently, my weekend nights are spent violating the laws of nature... The Bhut Jolokia pepper is, without any hyperbole, the hottest pepper in the world. The chart above compares the jolokia with other, more common peppers, as measured in Scoville units. The Scoville scale is named after the American chemist Wilber Scoville, and measures the amount of capsaicin in a pepper. Last night at a cookout, two of my genius friends reconstituted a bag (8 or so) of dried jolokia peppers, then pureed them in a blender. I was told they were going to be "Scoville shots:" a tablespoon or so of jolokia puree mixed with a shot of vodka. My response, was that they were idiots. The jolokia is used, after all, as a pepper spray to ward off wild elephants in India, and being considered for use in non-lethal riot control. Two hours later though, caving less to pee...